


Justice

by midas_touch_of_angst



Category: Animaniacs
Genre: ADHD, Angst, Autism, Autism Spectrum, Backstory, Canon Backstory, Character Analysis, Fae & Fairies, Fae Magic, Gen, Siblings, [SPOILERS BEYOND THIS POINT]
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-05
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:09:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27902773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midas_touch_of_angst/pseuds/midas_touch_of_angst
Summary: "They weren’t supposed to be here this long.Even after they forgot everything else, that thought still lingered in their minds. Too long. We’ve been here too long. There was something, something dangerous about being out too long… we have to go home.Where’s home?"aka a little backstory that's been bouncing around in my head for a while...
Relationships: Dot Warner & Wakko Warner & Yakko Warner
Comments: 7
Kudos: 107





	Justice

They weren’t supposed to be here this long. 

Even after they forgot everything else, that thought still lingered in their minds. _Too long. We’ve been here too long. There was something, something dangerous about being out too long… we have to go home._

_Where’s home?_

Sometimes at night the eldest would remember a little bit. Never enough to stay come morning, but enough to make him wonder. Hands brushing over his fur, whispers about something of theirs being blocked off, disrespected. “So we’re sending you, and if you do a good job…” There was some kind of promise there, a promise he knew was important but slipped away about twenty years into their imprisonment. But it was important enough that they’d all agreed, and waited for their opportunity to start the mission. They couldn’t get there until a path opened up for them, and it took two of the planet’s years for them to make their way to the right time, the right place, close enough to where the offense occurred that they could finally deliver consequences. 

They got there, and did what they were supposed to do; deliver punishments, not torment. The three of them, they were judges, not criminals. Unfortunately, the hard part came when they couldn’t exactly explain their mission. These people’s small minds couldn’t pick up on it, or maybe some kind of magical block was going on. But that was fine, they could continue messing with them until they figured it out and made it right. And it was easy- they kept getting slighted for the smallest things, so they’d “slight” these people right back. 

Sometimes it wasn’t even intentional, but when they saw people get angry, they figured out how to roll with it. They could roll with anything, really, that was how they were. Sometimes they just wanted to play, spend their time with these people in as fun a way as possible; they were children, after all. But then the people would get angry over nothing, and then the siblings would sigh and roll up their metaphorical sleeves in order to teach them a lesson, as they were meant to do. 

They figured out the rules of this world pretty quickly- comedy was the basis of everything. If something was funny, it could happen, any other physics be damned. Which worked out _great_ for the trickster siblings, especially since so rarely did anything or anyone die, meaning they could keep their mission going as long as necessary. 

It ended up going longer than they wanted, though. Longer than they could have ever wanted. Their kind didn’t like waiting, after all, but then they had no choice. 

It took the humans about a year to find a place that trapped them effectively, and even then, it was a mistake on their part- they didn’t know why this worked and the others didn’t, they just assumed it was luck or a stroke of genius, if they had a big enough ego. But it started with the siblings running, running, running, and then they were mid-air, a net keeping them up, and then they were in a tall tower, a small tower, and they were let out, and they thought this might be a fun new room to play in, like they’d been playing with everyone the last year, and then the door slammed shut. 

They didn’t notice at first, barely cared. They weren’t afraid of closed doors yet. They messed around with each other a little, and then got bored, and then the oldest tried to open the door and found that it was stuck. He pushed more, and then tried to manipulate the rules of this world to get out. He threw himself at the door, threw his brother at the door, pulled a piano out of a bag to throw against it, did dramatic leans and half-hearted witty remarks. But then the hours kept wearing on, and his siblings sat against the wall and asked when the door was going to open, and after what might have been an eternity and might’ve only been a few minutes, he had to admit that it might not. 

That was the thing about time here, while they were trapped. It could’ve been a century, it could’ve been a week. It was no time at all and all the time in the world at the same time. They weren’t of this world, but were trapped inside, had been fitting in with the flow of things. And they were very close, so close, to the way home, but it was just out of reach. Just close enough to mess up everything they tried to do, and just far enough to keep them trapped. 

For a long time, they tried everything to get out. But the saws the middle child tried to use on the floor simply shattered, and the windows the youngest tried to paint wouldn’t open up and let them out. The eldest had been taught, before they left, how to teleport them where they needed to go, but it only worked under certain planetary formations, in certain times. He almost never guessed right, and when he did, they’d be thrown somewhere that was worse- three-hundred years in the past and halfway across the planet, unable to transport again another month, for instance. And then when they’d be able to teleport again, they’d be back in the cage, like no time at all had passed. Maybe it hadn’t, maybe they’d just been dreaming of their last escape. 

Years went by, years and years of the youngest wondering if someone would come to visit and the middle asking why they didn’t have food, shouldn’t someone be feeding them, and the eldest spending nights, while his siblings were asleep, trying to get that door to open. Years passed by, but the children didn’t age, neither mentally nor physically. This wasn’t their world, they wouldn’t grow here. Like a seed, planted in the wrong soil, they’d remain forever underground- or, in this case, high aboveground and unable to break free. 

At some point, he couldn’t remember when, the eldest child tried to make things better. This was all another game, he told his siblings. It was like hide and seek, and eventually the humans would find them and let them out and then they could finish their mission. 

The middle was already forgetting the mission by that point, but he’d never been one for attention to detail, he just liked to have fun, and they’d _been_ having fun the last year. They would have fun, or they’d give misfortune to someone who deserved it. They hadn’t done anything wrong. The eldest must be right, this must be another game. When the humans came, they’d tell them that they didn’t like the game anymore, and they’d whack the ones in charge with a hammer as punishment or something, and then move on. 

The youngest remembered for longer, her mind had always been analytical, more focused. She’d wanted to complete the mission faster, to get back what was theirs and then return home for… she felt like they’d left something behind, sometimes, even after she forgot about home, sometimes in her sleep she’d mumble that they’d forgotten something or someone for so long, too long. 

The eldest tried to keep them distracted, and it took maybe a decade for it to work. Though the universe’s rules would not allow them to escape, it _would_ allow them to fill the tower with what they wanted. If it was funny enough, the youngest could pull a book out of midair to whack her brother with, and then they’d have a book to read. The eldest would complain that they didn’t have a bed, and then the middle would be able to pull a triple bunk out of the wall. They worked around the rules of the universe, worked around their imprisonment to at least make it a bit more like home. Every now and again they’d switch things up- now the tower is a huge trainyard, now it’s got a lot of different rooms, now it’s a dance hall. 

Their hopes of being released, of this all being a mistake or a game, however, got crushed very, very suddenly and horribly. It had been a few years when they were first let out, but there was no giggles of “You’re It!” or “Found you, finally!” or even the most yearned-for “We’re sorry, we’re fixing it.” Instead, the door was thrown open, and they were grabbed and shoved into a net and tossed down the tower, into the arms of a guard, who tossed them into a room. The middle bit a hole in the net so they could escape, and they ran to the office of the man in charge, and told them they were just about done with the tower, thank you very much. The man in charge then just laughed, and they were happy, this _was_ a game after all! 

And then he told them that they made no sense, they didn’t fit with the world, with its people. They couldn’t follow orders, they couldn’t talk to people without scaring them, they couldn’t listen. They were disobedient, they were chaotic, they were _broken._ Wrong. Different. 

He yelled this for a long time, and the eldest tried to stand tall, to look defiant, so that when the man quieted he could yell back. The middle stared at the wall, then the desk, then the floor, trying to keep his mind on anything else, so he didn’t have to hear that they’d done a bad job, they were here to do a job, they’d been doing it, didn’t this man understand? Or were they the ones who got it wrong? The youngest, meanwhile, started to cry, hiding behind her brothers and burying her face in their arms, shaking and trying to ask if it was true, if they were really _hated._ They weren’t supposed to be hated. They shouldn’t be hated, they _couldn’t_ be hated… 

The guard came back and managed to grab the middle, and ran off with him, and the siblings had to follow. They wouldn’t leave their brother, not alone, not after they’d only had each other for so long. And so when the middle ended up back in the tower, they ran in after him, and shook as the door slammed again. 

The tower, they realized, had only been opened to be cleaned, so that it didn’t smell, so that the humans weren’t bothered by it. Nobody cared about the siblings in there. Not one person. 

The youngest and middle cried for a very long time, to the point where the tower was filled with water as it once had been. And then the eldest, who himself was feeling like his heart had plummeted into the depths of hell below them, used the universe’s laws again, pulling a raft out of nowhere for them to lay in. 

He hugged them and told them first that this didn’t matter, they weren’t here to make friends, just to make things right. The youngest said that they’d thought they were communicating, though, they’d thought that people were listening to them, were having _fun_ with them! The middle said that there must have been a reason they were hated, it must have been something they did, something unfair and cruel, what had they done to deserve this? The youngest asked why the adults hadn’t just _told_ them they were doing something wrong, the middle asked why this world was so confusing and why their job wasn’t done yet. 

The eldest didn’t have any answers, so he took a deep breath and told them that, okay, this world was a bit… wrong. Clearly the people didn’t even know what they were, what they were dealing with. So when they got out, they’d punish them more. For locking away their judges, mistreating the ones who were there to guide them onto the right path. But even that didn’t work, because his siblings no longer cared about their mission, they just wanted to be free again. 

The middle spoke, then. And though they all forgot the words later, the eldest was still haunted by them, even after he long lost the ability to remember why. 

“Why have we been here so long? Shouldn’t they have come looking for us?”

And once again, there was no answer for him. So the eldest simply smiled and started talking. About anything, nothing- a joke, perhaps, or a story. Just kept talking, kept them distracted. And soon they were asleep, and then the next morning their tears had dried and he had set up a new room for them to play in. To make the best of things. Make the best of things. Make the best of things. Make… 

The forgetting began then. Maybe it was just because of how long they’d been trapped in this world, maybe it was their proximity to freedom denied to them, or maybe it was just a way to protect themselves. To make things a little better, to convince themselves that they wanted to be here, that there was nothing else they had to do, this was home, this was fine, everything was _fine._

The youngest, of course, forgot first, and the middle not long after. The eldest hung on as tightly as he could, but after thirty or forty years it slipped from him, too. He remembered a few things, like how to teleport- except they always ended up somewhere strange and then were back in the tower. He remembered, and reminded his siblings, that they didn’t just cause pain, they delivered justice, even as his memories slid and this became less of a job and more of a moral obligation. He remembered the rules of this world, so that he could pull a television out of nowhere once it was invented, in order to discover what was happening in this world, or to entertain them with something, or so that he could change the tower room to keep them from getting bored with their environment. He remembered that the adults were mean, that nobody ever listened to them, and that… they had a job to do? But what was that job? It slipped from him eventually, but he did feel like there was something they had to do. The man in charge said they were supposed to work for the people on whose land they were on, but were they? Maybe? Maybe not? What were they _doing_ here? 

They didn’t just forget their job, they forgot their world, too. About fifteen years in, when the youngest could no longer remember what their old house looked like, how high she could swing on the tree in the backyard, she had sobbed between her brothers until she fell asleep. And then fifteen years after that, she didn’t even remember they had an old world at all. It didn’t take long for that fact to slip from her brothers as well. They spent so long in the tower, in _this_ world, that it was becoming their world. 

Where else did they have to go? Who else did they have to go home to? Who, indeed; the youngest asked one day, “We’re siblings, so where are our parents? The rest of our family?” And the eldest had a flash, a memory of loving hands and soft songs and people like them, who looked and acted like them and knew who they were… and then the flash was gone, and he shrugged, and said that the people who owned the tower seemed to have created them. 

Every now and again they’d be let out while the tower was cleaned again, but they didn’t try to be nice this time, they simply ran, found something to entertain them, someone to grant justice to. But then someone would get them back in the tower, and they’d be alone again. Once, just a few years before the doors failed, they’d literally been sold off for a limited time, dragged away in a net to work until their employers got upset with their chaos and sent them back, back to the tower. By this point, they didn’t even hate the cage anymore, it was the closest thing to home they had. 

And every now and again, a memory of someone lost or left behind would come into the eldest’s memory, during these excursions. When they’d be yelled at for not listening, even though they thought they had been, he’d get another flash, of someone who might’ve been their father or uncle or brother, teaching them to play with a toy while they listened so their mind didn’t wander. Someone would tell them they were strange, and the eldest would put a hand on his sister’s shoulder and remember a woman who might have been a mother or grandmother or cousin putting a hand on his own shoulder, telling him that she understood. He would see his brother flap his hands with excitement, and a voice in his head would say that someone used to do that, too, and would jump up and down with them in the garden when they were excited, flapping their hands as if they were wings. He would see his sister curtsey and introduce herself, a smirk on her face saying that this rude person they’d encountered would be playing with them soon, and he’d feel a familiarity in her announcing that she had a family name- yes, someone had her name before, her names before? But then those thoughts would disappear, and he’d forget again. 

And once they forgot what they were there for, they struggled to make sense of it. Why were they in the tower again? Why were people so mad at them all the time? Why did these people feel like the siblings just weren’t _right?_ No, it must be the people who were wrong, it mustn’t be them… after all, the youngest and middle reasoned, they liked themselves fine, and they liked each other, so they couldn’t be wrong. The eldest, whose self-love would wax and wane, just nodded along, and then told them they were the best siblings in the world and hugged them tight and wouldn’t let go. 

It was about sixty-three years before there was a burst of magic- not much. Not enough to take them home, not when they couldn’t remember or recognize it. But there was a burst of magic, and the tower door opened, and the siblings waited a moment, to see if someone would run in with a net or rope. But then nobody did, and they realized the door was truly open, and they wasted no time in running out. 

They couldn’t remember a mission, a job they had to do. They only remembered this world, what they had learned here, and that the adults didn’t listen. And they remembered their obligation- they were not here to hurt, but to deliver justice. So they’d try to make things better, to play with the humans, to find some fun, to make a friend or two. Occasionally they found someone who understood them, some of the workers around who were pretty close to them- in fact, the siblings had been mistaken for these workers upon their arrival, not that they really noticed- and thus understood them. But these workers were often busy, and would go home at night, and had their own lives to live. The other workers, and the other people living in this world, were either openly hostile or just completely unaware of how to deal with these children. Either way, the siblings couldn’t find someone who’d stay with them. 

They got close a few times- a few people who tolerated them most, but even then, they’d do something they found fun, perhaps with a bit of magic or universe-bending, and then those people would be angry or scared, and then it was back to square one. They seemed to always be stuck at square one. And now they couldn’t even remember why. 

They did remember how alone they felt in the tower, though. So the youngest ran for attention, rushing for validation and demanding that she be respected and adored, asking for others to tell her that she was adorable, she was lovely, she was brilliant, she was _good._ The middle would eat whatever he could find, remembering how they’d had no food in the tower and one day that door would close and be stuck again and he’d better eat whatever he could while he was out. The eldest would try to talk, to keep the people of the world entertained. If they were entertained, if the world thought he was funny, he wouldn’t be locked away, his siblings wouldn’t be locked away, everything would be fine. They were there to entertain, to have fun, to deliver justice, and… nothing else, right? They’d been created by this world, this was their world, there was nothing else they had to do. Nobody else to go back to. If they had family, they must be gone, or they’d have found them. Someone would have found them. 

They’d even forgotten how close and far freedom was from them. Because the door was no longer stuck, and they had nowhere to go, they’d sleep in the tower still, it was home now, the only home they could remember. So they didn’t know that their goal, their ticket home, was right beneath them, that they’d been sent here because of the tower, and so the fact it was their home now was sort of ironic. They might find it funny if they remembered. 

The tower had been built over their family circle, one of the many circles of the fae. Those were not to be disrespected, to be built over and disrupted. If the tower was destroyed completely, if the pavement ripped up, the circle would open and so would the way home, to the land of the fae who lived between time and space, between worlds, delivering justice with their tricks and twisting words. 

And home was waiting, beneath the tower, wondering why the Warner siblings hadn’t yet returned. How long did time pass on Earth, anyway? Shouldn’t Yakko, Wakko and Dot be home by now? 

They should be home by now. They weren’t supposed to be here this long.

**Author's Note:**

> they're fae and you can't change my mind


End file.
